


A Stranger Comes to Town

by LeilaKalomi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley Hates the 14th Century (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Skin Hunger, Touch-Starved Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23482492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeilaKalomi/pseuds/LeilaKalomi
Summary: Aziraphale is blamed for outbreaks of plague in a village he can't leave. He grows lonely and touch-starved. Of course Crowley helps.There's no plot.(This is totally a quarantine fic.)
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale & Gabriel (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 263
Collections: comfort fics





	A Stranger Comes to Town

Aziraphale had been found out.

Well, sort of.

He had arrived in Pulloxhill around the same time the plague had broken out there. At first, he’d healed the people, stopping their suffering before it even had the chance to properly begin. At night, he’d retire to the little hut he’d found (or imagined into existence) nestled in thatch of bushes behind a hill at the edge of the village.

But the village was a busy one, and it wasn’t long before the disease had broken out in earnest. Aziraphale ran all over the little village, wearing himself and the dirt roads out with the effort of curing everyone in need, setting protections around the homes of those fortunate enough not to have been affected.

It was a Sunday, when Aziraphale left his hut to head to the priory and bless everyone under the roof, that Gabriel appeared, standing just on the other side of the bushes. Aziraphale stopped just outside his own door and waited.

“Stop, Aziraphale,” Gabriel said, uselessly. Aziraphale had not moved since spotting him. He hesitated. Gabriel smiled, a twist of his lips, a tilt of his head. Cold, violet eyes. “I can’t let you go to the services this morning. You understand that, don’t you? This is part of the plan.”

* * *

As the weeks went on, Aziraphale tried to offer what comfort he could to the sickest. He could feel when someone was on the edge of their Earthly existence, and he went to them, eased them through the worst of the pain, and tried to make their passage into the next life an easy one.

(We won’t pretend he didn’t wonder where Crowley was.)

But the real problem wasn’t that Aziraphale had to watch people die. It wasn’t that, even without the presence of his adversary, some of them still wouldn’t choose Heaven. No, the real problem was that Aziraphale’s actions had consequences he didn’t recognize until it was too late.

Because those Aziraphale chose to visit all died, people gradually noticed and began to talk among themselves. They had _noticed_ him. But not as an angel.

Just a few weeks after the plague came to town, he was barred from visiting any others. None of his miracles to alter their thinking, to let him pass, worked. The villagers he did get close to recoiled from his touch, shouting at him to keep back.

As he rushed home feeling embarrassed, scorned, he saw Gabriel standing at the edge of the village, a pointed look on his face. Was he blocking him? Perhaps Aziraphale should leave. But Heaven had been the ones to send him here. He didn’t understand. When he tried to approach Gabriel, he simply vanished. Aziraphale begged for direction, but he couldn’t leave the village. And he got no answers.

After several weeks alone, without conversation, without touch, he began to fold in on himself, feeling cold and empty. He read, yes, and ate hard bread, and drank wine. Too much wine, perhaps, because he felt something in him starting to give way, beginning to die. Inexplicably, his thoughts frequently turned to a sharp, smiling face, glowing yellow eyes. He imagined the brush of soft skin against his fingers. Would he be able to feel scales, he wondered? Would the demon be cold to the touch? Would he smell foul up close, like brimstone and burnt hair? He pushed the thoughts away when they came, but he found himself entertaining them for longer and longer. Sometimes, in the evenings, he walked through the village, ignoring the faces of the villagers pressed to the windows of their homes and of the local tavern, shutting out the sickness in the air, and the smell of decaying bodies at the other edge of the village. He did his best to project grace and goodwill, though it was obvious that something was still dampening his abilities here.

It was on one of these nighttime strolls that he saw a figure at the other end of the central path. A tall, thin, swaying figure. _No. It couldn’t be._ Surely, Aziraphale was imagining, and he’d finally cracked. But why couldn’t it be? Just because he wanted it? “Crowley?” he said, but Crowley, if it was the demon, was too far away to hear him. Aziraphale quickened his pace. The figure stepped toward him, too.

In the lantern light, there was a flash of red hair, two dark spots illuminated on a sharp face. Dark glasses.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale shouted.

“Angel?” Crowley sped up.

Aziraphale did not know when he had begun to run, only that he was approaching Crowley faster and faster, arms unthinkingly stretched out to touch, to grasp, to hold.

“Oi!” called someone from the tavern, stepping outside. “Don’t let him touch you!”

“Angel, what—?”

“Oh, I knew you’d come,” Aziraphale said. He rested his hands on Crowley’s shoulders, uncertainly. Why was he touching him? Why had he tried to embrace him? Why had he run to him? Crowley looked down at Aziraphale’s hands. Aziraphale did too. They were shaking. His eyes felt wet.

“Will you come back with me?” he asked.

Crowley frowned. The man at the door of the tavern stared, then went back inside, shutting the door. Faces pressed to the window. There was the sound of the door bolting against the two of them. Aziraphale looked down, away from Crowley as the demon’s face softened.

“What’s happened?” Crowley said.

“Will you come?” Aziraphale repeated. He had not let go of Crowley. And now Crowley brought his hands up to Aziraphale’s, covering them with his own. Aziraphale sighed at the touch, his eyes closing shamefully.

“Hey,” Crowley whispered. “Yeah, I’ll…I’ll come. Anywhere you want to go.”

He gripped one of Aziraphale’s hands in his, and without letting go of Crowley’s hand, Aziraphale slid his hands from Crowley’s shoulders.

“This it?” Crowley said, as they neared the cabin. Aziraphale nodded. Crowley, he knew, generally had much more luxurious dwellings when he was on assignment. Suddenly, he felt embarrassed, fidgety, in a way he hadn’t even been when he’d nearly thrown himself at the demon. Why _had_ he brought him here? What was he doing? But he moved as if by instinct, as if his thoughts did not direct his actions at all.

“This is it,” Aziraphale said. But Crowley only nodded. Aziraphale opened the door. “After you,” he said, his voice coming out too soft, too full of need. Crowley walked inside. Aziraphale gulped and swallowed. Then he entered as well. Crowley whirled around, turning on him, reaching over and shoving the door closed behind Aziraphale. Aziraphale went still and found himself gripped, pulled in, held. He sighed with it, relaxing when he realized it was all Crowley intended, that there was no attack coming, that Crowley had understood what he was afraid to ask for. His gratefulness wasn’t quite enough to overcome his shame.

“It’s the plague,” he explained, into Crowley’s neck. His skin was soft and hot, his hair tickling Aziraphale’s face. He smelled like sweat and wine and sage. “They won’t let me get near. Won’t let me help. Gabriel won’t let me leave.”

“ ’S all right,” Crowley said. “It’ll be over soon. Just like everything else. For us, anyway. Guess that answers that, then, if it’s one of yours.”

“Not _mine_.”

“Heaven’s, then,” Crowley said. He still did not let go.

“You understand,” Aziraphale said. He’d meant to ask it, but that wasn’t how it came out. Crowley had seemed to delight, before, in his complicity.

“I _know_ ,” Crowley said. Aziraphale brought his arms up around Crowley. Pulled him closer, felt him tighten his hold a little in turn. “We’re not Heaven and Hell, are we?” he said.

Aziraphale hesitated. He reached up, pulling back a little, and removed Crowley’s glasses, slowly so he’d have time to stop it. Crowley only watched him, letting it happen, his eyes unguarded and yellow, full and kind and sad.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “Oh, my dear. No, we’re not.” He leaned forward again, resting his head against the demon’s shoulder, feeling the surprising solidity of him, so full of heat and life.

“I’ve got you,” Crowley said. “ ’S all right, angel. Not going to leave you here alone, yeah? I’ve got you.”

Crowley guided him to the floor, and they sat on Aziraphale’s mattress, leaning into each other. Aziraphale found that with Crowley there, it was both easier to grieve and not as necessary. Crowley did not leave, even as he began to look tired, and Aziraphale was reluctant to separate from him, so they lay down together, Crowley’s eyes growing wide at first, then slipping closed as he rested his head against Aziraphale’s chest.

“Not going to smite me in my sleep, are you?” he whispered. But he was smiling. And Aziraphale laughed, cradling him, treasuring the warmth of him, the weight of him, the trust between them, and the strong but gentle thrum of something between them that he wasn’t yet ready to see.


End file.
